


In Noctem Novembre

by flightlessnerds



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: 2012, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling, Early Days, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hand Jobs, Intimacy, M/M, Rubbing, Two Emotional Boyz, Van Days, rab era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 08:58:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12678636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightlessnerds/pseuds/flightlessnerds
Summary: Josh thought that their first headlining tour would mean more hotels, and fewer cold nights in the van. Fortunately, he and Tyler have their own ways of keeping warm.





	In Noctem Novembre

**Author's Note:**

> If you want this to be DAB canon compliant, then it’s DAB canon compliant. If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, carry on as usual :-) 
> 
> Thanks to [@all_of_the_trash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_of_the_trash) for his help with the title!

Somehow, in what he now realized had been a delusion of grandeur, Josh had assumed that getting signed by a label would mean the end of sleeping on a too-soft mattress in the back of a too-cold van. But Fueled by Ramen had made it clear - this tour wasn’t going to be making the label any kind of big money. Sure, it was a big deal for him and Tyler, for Mark and Michael and the guys - twenty one pilots’ first headlining tour - but in all likelihood, their management would be losing money rather than gaining it, and hotels and buses were not considered a worthwhile investment towards fledgling artists like themselves. 

But even though this wasn’t their first rodeo, even though they’d slept plenty of nights in the van before, it had almost always been in the lazy heat of summer, when it was commonplace for the four of them to strip down to their underwear and crack the windows as they slept, keeping their distance from each other’s bodies not out of politeness, or lack of affection, but purely as a means to keep their own internal temperatures as low as possible in the sticky evenings of that week’s Roadside, America. 

The difference this time was in the name - the _Mostly November Tour_ would eventually deposit them in Nashville, Atlanta, Orlando, and the kind of Indian summer that would allow for comfortable sleeping conditions within the thin metal walls of their makeshift home. But when Josh had checked the weather app tonight after their show in Buffalo and seen that it was going down to 36 degrees overnight, the sleeping bags that had kept them warm for the last year and a half began to seem wholly inadequate in the face of northeastern autumn. 

Michael’s strategy so far had been to stop for no more than four hours at a time, blasting the heat as much as possible before they pulled over so that the van never got the chance to drop below a comfortable sleeping temperature. Otherwise, he rationalized, they could each sleep in turns while the others drove - though in the end, as always, Michael preferred being behind the wheel, so the four hour pauses were almost always so that he could get rest before moving on. 

Tonight, despite their protective measures - trapping heat and doubling up on hoodies - the chilled glass of their windows and the persistent cold of northern near-winter had made sleep difficult to find. It was Tyler and Josh’s turn on the back mattress, and they hadn’t thought twice before zipping their sleeping bags together and huddling up, doubling the body heat available to them. 

“I thought November was still part of Fall,” Josh said quietly, mostly just to have something to say. “This feels like winter.” 

They were facing each other, neither of them feigning sleep. Josh’s arms were crossed and pulled tightly to his chest like a mummy, and Tyler’s were folded sideways, resting against each other as he used his hands as a pillow. He didn’t reply. 

This wasn’t the first time or the third or the hundredth they’d lain like this, and not for the first time, Josh wondered if his breath smelled okay. In the infancy of their closeness during that first summer together as band mates, he had used to make a conscious effort to keep his mouth closed, just in case - but time and intimacy had taught him not to care. Tyler was blunt, and if Josh smelled, he would’ve known by now. 

“It is Fall,” Tyler said simply. His breath smelled like cinnamon gum, and it warmed the cold air between their mouths. “Fall gets cold.” 

“Hmm,” Josh agreed, half listening. Tyler’s voice filtered through his consciousness, but Josh was more interested in watching the chapped corners of his mouth form each word, watching the way the wet interior of Tyler’s bottom lip hugged his top teeth on the “F” of “Fall.” 

Tyler’s gaze was directed somewhere to the right of Josh’s chin, and Josh identified the expression immediately as the one Tyler wore when he was thinking too much and too hard - exacerbated, perhaps, by the cloying chill of the November air. 

“Okay?” Josh said quietly, more comfort than question, though he waited patiently for reply. 

Tyler nodded, gaze unfocused but unyielding. 

“Stupid,” he murmured. 

Josh pulled himself closer. 

“What is?” 

Tyler gave the smallest shrug. 

“We’re pulling crowds,” he said quietly, in a slow but youthful cadence that somehow reminded Josh of the Tyler he’d met over two years ago. “We’re filling up every show of this tour, but we’re still living on nothing.” 

“Oh,” Josh murmured, surprised but relieved. He had assumed himself to be the only one who found the lack of support offputting, had thought his complaints childish and ungrateful. And perhaps they were - but at least he wasn’t alone in his disgruntlement. 

“It’s just,” Tyler shrugged, his hoodie bunching up against his ears, “I mean.” 

He didn’t go on. 

“It’s just cold,” Josh offered. 

Tyler let out a quiet and exhausted laugh. 

“Yeah.” 

Josh considered Tyler’s pink full cheeks for a long moment, before moving suddenly, shimmying himself out of their shared sleeping bag and into an upright position against the back of the bench seat. He bent his legs up, spreading them as much as he could with Tyler’s torso and frowning face in the way, and patted his chest gently. 

“C’mon,” he whispered, jerking his head up for Tyler to join him. When Tyler didn’t move, he changed tactics, bending down to brush an entreating hand along the side of Tyler’s chest, and under his arm. “Baby boy. C’mon.” 

Tyler slackened, acquiesced, scooching up and pivoting carefully so that his body slotted between Josh’s waiting and open legs, his back to Josh’s chest. Their sweatpants were the very same shade of navy, making the boundaries between limbs discernable only by touch. 

“I’m not sure I believe them,” Tyler huffed, and Josh could visualize a cloud of vapor leaving his lips on the exhale - or maybe it was just his cold-addled imagination, seeing what it expected to see. 

Josh doubled his grip around Tyler’s torso, trying to radiate warmth. He felt the vibrations of Tyler’s voice in his chest before he heard him speak again. 

“Fueled by Ramen. They make such a big fuss about how grateful we should be about getting our own headline, and that this is a sign of their faith in us and our fans. But then they make it clear that we’re still essentially worthless to them as people,” he went on gruffly. “As long as we’re selling tickets and growing our fan base, they don’t care if we freeze to death on the side of the road in the middle of New York.” 

“Pennsylvania,” Josh corrected automatically. “Sorry. Michael said we crossed over already, before we stopped.” 

Tyler shrugged, and Josh wished he hadn’t butted in. He was listening. He was listening. He didn’t know what to say. 

He wanted very much to say that sure, the label didn’t care, but _they_ shouldn’t care either. Hadn’t what Tyler said been exactly their motto all along? That it didn’t matter if they had to freeze and starve and criss-cross the country in a van, as long as they were playing shows every night for the kids who needed them most? Had either of them been foolish enough to think that would change when they got signed - or foolish enough to want it to?

Even though he’d been bitterly cursing the label for his cold toes only moments before, Josh was suddenly struck with the discomfort of imagining a twenty one pilots that _wasn’t_ characterized by the romance of scarcity, and the reward gained from successfully fending for themselves. 

“I don’t want to give up our integrity either,” said Tyler, in his usual maddening but heartwarming habit of knowing exactly what Josh had been thinking. “I’m just saying that if they want us to keep touring, I’m going to need to… like… not lose multiple fingers to hypothermia, or you’ll have to start playing the piano, and... nobody wants that...” 

The clumsiness of his smiling voice melted the tension like early frost, and Josh let the cold tip of his nose find warm repose in the crook of Tyler’s neck. He nudged, and Tyler hunched his shoulders and tilted his head in automatic response, leaning farther back into Josh’s torso, pressing out any remaining pockets of air between the soft, breathing animals of their bodies. 

Tyler brought his elbows back to rest in the angles of Josh’s outstretched arms, sliding his hands underneath Josh’s own, letting their fingers intermingle, and then curl. His hands were cold, but with the suggestion of warmth under their frozen surface - just enough to remind him that Tyler was alive, and that under each of their winter exteriors were systems of blood and bones that cared nothing for contracts or management or the politics of art. 

“I’m happy to be here,” Josh breathed into his neck, curled around him like another layer, holding tight to the backs of his hands, knuckles to knuckles. “You know that, right?” 

Tyler let his head loll onto his shoulder, and breathed out a long sigh through his nose, exhausted and content. 

“Mm,” he answered. “I’m cold.” 

Josh curled closer, lips and teeth and eyelashes on the back of Tyler’s neck. 

“Shh,” he breathed, and Tyler shifted, fabric against fabric moving over skin. 

He brought his right arm up to brush away the hair from the left side of Tyler’s long and waiting neck, making room for his mouth. Josh’s lips were patient, but insistent, as usual. In the same way, Tyler’s mass between his legs was solid and welcome; not seductive - not yet - just a close and familiar presence. 

“Relax for one second,” Josh spoke against the cold cartilage of Tyler’s ear, and he grunted in response, but Josh could feel a stifled laugh vibrate against his own sternum. 

He smiled to himself, kissing Tyler’s earlobe for good measure.

“Relax,” Josh said again, because _chill_ seemed harshly ironic. “Ty.” 

Only at the sound of his name did Tyler finally seem to slacken, unwinding slowly into Josh’s lap. Wordlessly, Josh willed Tyler’s body to let go of its stubborn paralysis, working muscle by muscle. They shifted, Tyler’s joints announcing themselves like pipes popping on a winter morning, or wood settling in an old house. It was him all over - old bones resting under young, blushing skin. 

“Jo--” Tyler tried to reciprocate, the end of his name getting lost in a relenting sigh. He let his head roll onto Josh’s shoulder again, blissful and overwhelmed, willingly giving over control to the boy behind him. 

Tyler opened a slackened mouth against Josh’s cheek, lips missing his lips - or perhaps never aiming for them at all. It wasn’t quite a kiss in the first place so much as it was a quiet offering of breath. 

His legs were last to go, relinquishing their tension and falling open against the insides of Josh’s knees, inviting his touch. Tyler’s body was a waiting comfort; he knew it by heart and by hand, and the pads of Josh’s fingers fell into an easy pattern along the clothed creases where Tyler’s thighs joined his hips. 

Tyler whispered something that sounded like _under,_ and Josh let his hands find their way beneath his waistband to meet the tops of his thighs, warm and downy and generously filling his palms. It was an intimacy that would have been sexual a year ago, but the crude fumbling of mutual discovery had long since been left behind. Nevertheless, Josh recognized the signs of pleasure and need radiating from the boy in his arms, and coaxed Tyler’s legs open further until his knees were drawing up, feet flexing and heels bowing innocently, shivering in Josh’s grasp. 

Sleep seemed unlikely in this brief winter, so Josh allowed himself to indulge, hands unhurried in their ministrations, lingering on the warm and impossibly soft skin of Tyler’s balls. Time had taught Josh to focus here, handling the other boy with delicate and deliberate care, and feeling lazily triumphant when Tyler whimpered quietly into the dark. 

Josh didn’t need him to elucidate. He brought the pad of his thumb to stroke at the base of Tyler’s shaft, which in his slow undoing had swelled, asking, and Josh’s hands answered, pulling and squeezing as Tyler arched against him.

“C’mere,” Josh said softly, frustrated with the distance. He wanted to see Tyler’s eyes, unfocused with need. 

Tyler obliged, turning to hook his legs over the side of Josh’s thigh, and twisting to clutch with both arms around the back of his neck. Josh reached down to gently pull Tyler’s sweats and underwear down his thighs to his knees, his legs pressed together, dick lying flushed between them. He felt Tyler breathe into his folded position, legs perpendicular to Josh’s, but torso facing his. They stayed like that, cheek to cheek, as Josh took Tyler into his hand again, stroking without holding back. 

In the quiet of the van, with only highway sounds for company, they had to budget their noises. But they were practiced, by now, in the art of restraint, and Josh relished the familiarity of hearing Tyler’s whimpers and gasps choke and fade in his throat. Each stroke of his fist brought with it a rush of breath that tickled Josh’s his collarbone, until Tyler tensed once more in his lap, legs still pressed firmly together as Josh pulled from him an orgasm that streaked the curves of his thighs. 

The cold was forgotten for both of them as Josh guided Tyler down, laying him gently on the polyester of their combined sleeping bags, sweat already drying on their skin. 

It was forgotten, or at least ignored, as Josh held Tyler’s hips in both of his calloused hands, cleaning him up with a hot, strong tongue, until his thighs glistened in the streetlamps, mouth still open slightly in a silent hallelujah. 

They’d ended up backwards - feet by the bench seat, heads by the van’s back double doors. It didn’t matter. 

Nothing mattered less, Josh thought, than their shoestring budget, or their label’s flaky support. The warm routine of summer had hardened with the first frost, fled like the wild geese for winter, in exchange for record deals and sold out shows and something that they could call a _career_ in front of family at Thanksgiving. 

But this was, and always had been, enough, better and more real than material luxury; was, Josh realized, an existence that he might someday yearn to come back to, when finally they would come to take buses and hotels and arenas for granted. 

With sleep at his fingertips, once again, Tyler voiced Josh’s thoughts. 

“They don’t know it,” he murmured, slipping his hand into Josh’s for safe keeping, “but we can stay warm all on our own.”

**Author's Note:**

> It felt really really good to write this. Like… I needed to write this.


End file.
